Words
by PurpleHedgehogSkies
Summary: I am falling through love, all the love I have, and I have no idea what waits for me at the bottom.
1. Chapter 1

Dying feels like falling. It isn't pleasant or peaceful—I wish it was. No, it's hell. Plummeting into the oblivion I've always feared. My hold on life has just slipped, and I'm falling away from everything I've ever known. I'm hurt—though the pain that plagued me so long is fading. I'm angry, betrayed by my own body and wrenched away from the world I love, the people I love. I'll never again clasp a cigarette between my teeth or sit in the sun; I'll never again hold her hand or see her smile.

I'm not ready for my Somewhere.

I'm not ready to let go of my metaphors, my video games, my family. I'm not ready to let go of my best friend or my beautiful girl. Mostly, I'm not ready to let go of _Augustus_. He used to be so alive. _I_ used to be so alive, and then I withered away. There's no glory in illness, and Lord, I wanted to be glorious, but I've just died in the middle of the night in a hospital bed, completely unconscious.

I don't even remember my parting declarations—what kind of impression have I left on the world without my last words? So many are remembered for their monumental death-bed-monologues, and here I am scraping by on maybe a muttered "_goodnight_".

With a jolt I realize that my story has ended midsentence. I was sleeping, dreaming, and then suddenly catapulting into the abyss. I knew this was coming, everyone knew it was coming as I grew weaker, sicker, but I'm unprepared for the nothingness that surrounds me. I'm not ready to be dead, and for a second, I hope to God that it's a nightmare.

I know it isn't.

And I don't know how long I fall. I cling to thoughts and memories, but they I fall faster than they do. They last for milliseconds in my mind before blinking out of existence again. I recall sitting back in a plastic chair, staring at a girl with an oxygen tank, and the way she stared back. I remember telling her how beautiful she is, taking her home, reading her beloved book and sharing my befuddlement. The swing set of tears and her misused Wish and Amsterdam—my properly used wish. I am falling through love, all the love I have, and I have no idea what waits for me at the bottom.

Is it strange that she is so prevalent in my dying? Perhaps because she brightly filled my final days, or because my last dream was of her blessed existence. Was she so important in my life and death that I must re-experience every moment I spent with her, or talking about her, or thinking about her?

I talked about her often, and thought about her even more.

They say when you die, you see your life before your eyes, but I mostly see Hazel Grace. And with every smile and tear that I remember, my figurative heart breaks. I welcome it, for it's the only feeling to feel besides falling. _I was right, Hazel Grace. This heartbreak _is _a privilege. _

My memory responds in fragments: _Augustus Waters…ours was an epic love story…you gave me a forever within the numbered days…I love you._

With that, I hit the bottom.


	2. Chapter 2

The blackness is gone, the numbness is gone. I flail and shout, and I feel the impact just like I would've when I was alive. It isn't as jarring as I would expect it to be—in fact, I feel like I've only stumbled and tripped. Backwards.

I turn my head—astonished that it exists, and I'm more than just a sliver of what I once was. My cheek rubs against a carpet, and I can feel the roughness of it against my skin. I hold my hands in front of my face, flexing my fingers and staring at them, bewildered. I know I'm dead—so _why do I have hands?_

I run my very existent fingers through my very existent hair, then prop myself up on my elbows. I'm clothed, wearing my shirt unbuttoned over a t-shirt and jeans, and I can feel the familiar bulge of my cigarettes in my pocket. I wiggle my toes and cry out in surprise—I have two legs. _Both of my legs_.

For a guy who died with one leg, suddenly having two is quite a shock. Also, I'm not wearing shoes, and for some reason that bothers me. If I manage to have all my senses and my body intact, with clothes and my cigarette box, why shouldn't I have shoes? It feels completely incomplete.

And then I hear it—a light chuckling, the unmistakable chuckling of a blind man. Not just any blind man, of course, but my favorite blind man in existence. For a moment I am concerned that Isaac has somehow joined me in death, but ever since that surgery that robbed him of sight, he's been less likely to die than Max Mayhem. (You can't kill Max Mayhem.)

"Dude," says Isaac. I struggle to my feet, finding myself in his living room—he's playing Counterinsurgence. I can tell by the images flickering on the TV screen. "I've been alone in the dark in this cave for weeks and I need some relief. HUMP THE CAVE WALL."

The computer thinks he said jump, I believe.

Hazel interrupts it, "Thrust pelvis against cave wall."

I stare at her. She is the same—as beautiful as I remember. I remember she tried to deny it, the day I met her, the day I told her, but it couldn't be truer than it is now, in this moment. And she smiles, and I wonder how long it has been since she's smiled. After all, I am dead. That sort of thing tends to bring woeful expressions to even the prettiest faces, smothering their fantastic smiles.

I wonder how long it's been since I died.

What is the point of this? Why am I seeing and hearing and feeling when I'm supposed to be gone? Is it the Higher Power I was never sure about, granting me my last wish—to see her again? Is it just some cruel glimpse of something I can't have anymore? Or is it a fabrication of my mind, or what's left of it, an echo of everything I need to see before I can go in peace? Whatever it is, it's bittersweet—it feels so real, like I'm here with them instead of gone.

Is this what happens when you die? You just see everyone you love going on without you? What kind of ending is that, a perpetual picture show of what you're missing? And what happens when they're all gone too? I ponder it for a moment. A lot of people would just soak it all in while they knew they could, but I stand there thinking and wondering.

And then I can't. I walk over, my steps silent, and sink to my knees in front of her. I want her to acknowledge me, to reach out and find my hand, to whisper her unprecedented witticisms in my ear. I want dying to have been a dream, and I want this to be real. I want more than anything to be living, breathing, Augustus Waters again.

"You cannot jump without standing," says the computerized voice of the game.

Isaac grimaces. "I dislike living in a world without Augustus Waters."

The computer doesn't understand that, and neither does Isaac.

* * *

Sitting there listening to them talk about me, I started to cry. Do not ask me how it was possible to shed tears in ghost form—I determined that I was, indeed, a ghost of sorts—but it happened. I shed manly, ghostly tears all over Isaac's carpet.

She's in my bedroom now. Upstairs the house is chaos, with the kids and Julie and Martha. I can hear them running, but I didn't get to see them. As soon as Hazel left Isaac's house, I blacked out again, falling through the dark and onto the basement floor. It hurt more this time.

She pilfers through my computer and thumbs through _An Imperial Affliction_, looking for something among the pixels and pages. I think it's about what Isaac told her, about my attempts to write something for my Hazel Grace. I never got the chance to finish any of my life-objectives, and that project falls among them—forever incomplete. What kind of mark did I leave, with all my unresolved feelings and attempts at heroism and greatness? It seems to me all I left is pain and undeniable incompleteness, for I lived a short, incomplete life with far too much pain and not enough room to actually live.

I'd lived while I could, but the clock was ticking. Our little infinity was nowhere near enough, no matter how thankful we were for it. I wonder if she thinks about it like this, if she will always wish for more numbers to spend with me. I will, as long as I have a mind to think and a spiritual form to get thrown about wherever she is. I will always want more.

She picks up _Infinite Mayhem_, the book I never finished. I watch her, helpless as she flips through the pages, the saddest look on her face. "Spoiler alert," she says to the empty room. For a moment, I think she can feel me here, that she knows I can see and hear her. I wonder what would happen if I tried to touch her, threading my fingers through her short hair or wiping the tear off her cheek. "Mayhem survives."

Of course Mayhem survives. Mayhem will always survive.

And I know she doesn't really feel me here. She curls up in my bed, inhaling what's left of my scent, what's left of my physical, living presence in this room. Soon it'll just be a shell that once held me, the imprint of me only in their minds. Because physically I will always be gone.

On her way out, Hazel speaks with my dad. He looks older than he ever has, I think. He says that I'm watching over from above, or something bullshitty like that, but he really believes it. Hazel Grace doesn't. She doesn't feel me hovering just beside her, and she doesn't feel me losing it. I feel so incomplete that it hurts, and I wonder if that's why I don't have shoes in death.

I'm incomplete even now.


	3. Chapter 3

I don't know how long I stay with her. I'm not paying attention to the passing of time; I'm not even sure I can feel it. I can still the breeze, the ground under my feet, Hazel Grace's oxygen tank when it rolls over my feet on occasion, but it isn't the same. I'm not alive.

But I stay. I never leave her side—even if I get pulled away, I'm always dropped right back to wherever she may be. I think I'm missing things, skipping things, and I wonder if this means I'm watching her age. But she's still looking for remnants of me—the letter I sent before I died—so I don't have to watch her move on yet. I want her to be able to, but to me the separation is fresh, and I'm not ready to see it. Is this all there is? I am tethered to her now, but is it forever? Will there ever be something else for me, or will I see her whole life play out until she joins me? It's not fun to think about, but there's nothing else for me to do. I can only observe and think and be dead.

I hate how permanently empty death is.

I go to Support Group—my name is on the list, of course. It still hurts to hear it. I watch her sleep and she mumbles my name, and it hurts. I sit on the floor while America's Next Top Model plays, and the fact that I cannot sit with her, and she cannot hear my commentary—that hurts. Death is void of connection and activity, but not pain and feeling. Not really.

* * *

Bastille Day. Crown Hill Cemetery.

It's lovely outside. July is a tricky month for weather, as it's right at the crest of summer. It's when the plants all droop and the temperature rises enough that it seems like all the thermometers think they're in hell. But today it's just warm.

I'm there first, my socked feet curling in the grass as I lean against a neighboring headstone. I don't have one yet, but if I did, I would lean against it. Underground, under dirt and dirt and more dirt, I have a casket. A fucking suit and tie, and a fucking body that should've fucking lasted longer. I sit here and watch them trek towards me, and I can't _not_ be angry. She gets closer, but I feel like I'm farther away with every step.

It's my final resting place, but I'm not at rest. I'm pissed. Infuriated.

I'm here, and she is standing over me, and I hate it. Right now, being dead is worse than the process of dying. I can reach for her, but she won't feel it. I can say her name, but she won't hear me. I could belt out folk songs or recite the Gettysburg Address at my own graveside and _no one would ever know. _

From this angle, the sunlight shines through her hair and makes her look vaguely angelic. Her eyes are sad, but I can see her strength in them. I have always seen it. She walks lightly, and shines brighter than anyone. It's not because of her battle against cancer, or the oxygen tank she must lug around to live, or the way she had to see me fall apart before her eyes and be lowered into the ground beneath where we stand. She's no soldier, but she's so heroic. We glorify the dead, but I glorify the living. I glorify Hazel Grace because she is glorious, and that is why I love her. Or perhaps she is glorious to me _because _I love her.

And suddenly I don't feel so much anger. I may be separated from Hazel Grace by death, but I still love her. I have been robbed of the privilege of touching her, conversing with her, but the one thing that I still have is my love for her.

I look at her as if I am really lying in that grave, and I feel better that I have not been denied the privilege of having my heart broken.

* * *

She reads the letter. I watch her eyes move over the words, and tears falling as she gets further along. I watch her expressions, the way her face changes as she reads, and not just because she thinks nobody is watching. To her, these words are my last.

And remembering what I wrote, I feel satisfied. She knows now what I think of her, and how she is everything anyone can hope to be. She knows now how I snuck into the ICU and wished she'd die first. She knows now that she's endlessly beautiful and smart and funny, at least in my eyes. She knows everything I might've said to her if I could've, if I'd known I was going and had enough time to prepare a speech.

You don't get to choose if you get hurt in this world, but you do have a say in who hurts you. I got the best choice, and by the way she smiles, I know that she likes her choices too.

* * *

Dying feels like falling. Like all the times you fell riding your bike, except with no one to help you to your feet again or clean up your scraped knees. No one to ask if you're okay.

But I think I'll be okay.


End file.
